Oatmeal Cream Pie... Upgraded

When I was a little girl, I used to beg my mother for snack cakes of all sorts, but none more than those sweet little oatmeal cream pies. Oh, they were just perfect! My mother almost never said yes, but man... When she did. The world was just that much better. Now, though, that I'm grown and a bit more "in the know", those little cream filled pies are not so appealing.

Then it occurred to me. Why not just make my own? None of the food coloring, none of the ingredients I couldn't pronounce, and no shortening. I ended up with a spicy, light oatmeal cookie with just the right amount of spice and a nice spike of coconut flavor and sandwiched a luscious marshmallow filling between two of them and we had a winner!

So, that's precisely what I did! Here's my method:

Oatmeal Cream Pies

*For the cookies*

1 3/4 cups flour
1 cup old fashioned oats, ground
1 1/2 tsp cornstarch
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp fresh nutmeg
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup coconut oil, solid
1 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 Tbs molasses
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla

* For the filling*

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup coconut oil, solid
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
4 oz marshmallow cream

Preheat oven to 350 and line your cookie sheets with parchment.

Combine the flour, oats, cornstarch, baking soda, salt, and spices and whisk to combine. Set that aside.

In your mixer, beat together the butter and coconut oil until combined and add sugar and molasses. Cream for about 3 minutes, until it's lightened and fluffy. Add in the eggs and the vanilla and beat for another 3 minutes. Then add in the dry ingredients until the dough comes together. Drop in 1 tablespoon balls on the cookie sheets and bake about 8-10 minutes, or until they're just turning golden around the edges. Allow them to rest a couple minutes before moving them to a cooling rack to cool completely.

When the cookies are cool, beat the butter and coconut oil together until well combined with the whisk attachment and then mix in the powdered sugar. Beat until light and fluffy and then beat in the marshmallow cream.

Banana Chai Pancakes

Some mornings make me want to crawl back in to bed. And this was one of those mornings. My sweet little 18 month old seems to have reached the "Diabolical Super Villain" phase of toddler-hood. The things he gets into when I turn my back just blow my mind. This morning, he decided, in the split second I was out of the kitchen, to shimmy his way up my cabinets and grab the bunch of bananas I'd purchased last night, peeled half of them and mangled the other half.

Oh, he was SO proud of himself! Sitting there in the midst of banana carnage. I don't know what you would have done in this situation. Maybe you'd have just thrown them out, but not me. No, that would be wasteful.  Life handed me mushed bananas, so I rinsed them off and made Banana Chai Pancakes.

Here's my method:

2 very smashed bananas
2 eggs
1 1/2 cup buttermilk
2 Tbs coconut oil, melted and cooled
1 3/4 cup white whole wheat flour
3 Tbs brown sugar
2 Tbs baking powder
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp ground cardamom

In a large bowl, whisk bananas, eggs, buttermilk, and coconut oil together until well combined. The add the dry ingredients, mixing until it just comes together as a lumpy batter. Dose out the batter onto a heated griddle and flip when they start to bubble. Serve immediately with warm maple syrup and sliced bananas.

I promise you won't be disappointed.

Sea Salt Chocolate Pecan Cookies

Do you remember the very first dish you ever made all by yourself? I do! A batch of ooey-gooey chocolate chip cookies straight off the back of a package of Toll House cookies. I was so stinking proud of myself, even though they were slightly overdone and completely irregular with just a hint of eggshell. You know, just for added calcium. But, I made them all by myself and, therefore, they were the very best cookies ever. And, after debating a bit about the first dessert I would feature on this blog, it only made sense that the first dessert was the descendant of the very first cookie I ever made from scratch.

After all this time, chocolate chip cookies are still my favorite and, thankfully, my skills have improved. I change the recipe up constantly with different mix-ins, but this is, by far, my most favorite version. Luscious chocolate, just a hint of sea salt, and a nice earthy hint from the pecans. There is just not one single thing wrong with these cookies, except that they don't last around this house to long.

So, here's my method:

2 1/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp kosher salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cup chocolate chips
2/3 cup pecan, chopped
Sea Salt

Preheat your oven to 350 and line baking sheets with parchment.

In a bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt and set it aside. In your mixer, cream together the butter and the sugars until they're lightened in color and looking fluffy. Add in the eggs, one at a time and the vanilla until well combined. You may need to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Then add in the flour, until it just comes together. Stir in the chocolate chips and the pecans and dose out the dough in 2 Tbs balls onto your prepped cookie sheets. Sprinkle just a pinch of sea salt onto each cookie and bake about 10 minutes, until the middle is just nearly set. allow the cookies to chill out on the pan for 2 minutes before moving to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Enjoy!

Blueberry Lime Muffins

Sunday mornings, in this house, means it's time for "Family Breakfast". While we eat dinner as a family every night, it's near impossible to get everyone at the same table in the morning. The husband has an insanely long commute and leaves far earlier than our earliest riser wakes, the kids have either school or various activities, etc. You get the picture. But, Sundays... Sundays are for family and we start off our family day with a nice breakfast and see where it goes from there.

This Sunday was no exception, with the slight exception that one of the kids wasn't home and we were getting a bit of a later start than normal. Our 11 year old had spent the night with a friend and I was given the chance to sleep in a bit. Score on both counts! But, by the time I got up and moving, I realized breakfast was either not going to happen or needed to be something I could quickly throw together and ready to hit the table all at once. It was decided! Muffins were the ticket and I knew just which variety was hitting the table:

Blueberry!

Always a crowd-pleaser and, because the kids adore them so much, we usually have plenty in the fridge. And though I love a good blueberry muffin, I felt a little piece of summer was needed to make this batch over-the-top delicious. What screams "Summer" more than the bright notes of citrus? Maybe a hint of coconut. Well, seeing as I had limes and coconut oil on hand, I made a batch of sinfully good Blueberry Lime  Muffins.

Here's my method:
Makes 12 delicious muffins

2 eggs
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup coconut oil, melted and cooled a bit
Zest of one lime
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 cup blueberries
1 Tbs raw sugar, optional

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and line or grease 12 muffin cups.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, salt, and baking soda and set it aside.

In a large bowl, beat eggs and gradually add in the sugar while beating and then slowly add in the oil. Toss in the lime zest. Then alternately add in the flour and buttermilk, starting and ending with the flour until it's just incorporated. Fold in the blueberries and divide evenly between the prepped muffin cups. Sprinkle the tops with a bit of the raw sugar. Bake 18-20 minutes, or until done. Allow to cool a few minutes in the pan before removing them to a wire rack to cool completely... Or not so completely, if you really can't wait.

My family loved these and I really wish I'd made more, since all 12 were gone within minutes. Hope you love them as much as we did.

Creamy Gorgonzola Dressing

I have a not-so-secret love of salads. They're bright, fresh, and easy to make. My husband, on the other hand, really is more of a "Meat and Potatoes" sort of man. It isn't that he won't eat them, they just aren't something he asks for regularly. So, often, it's impractical for me to keep bottles of salad dressing on hand, because, though I could eat a salad every day and be very happy, I can hardly go through 1 bottle of salad dressing, which sort of kills any attempt at variety.

My solution to this issue is that I just make my own dressing in small quantities. This way, I can have a different dressing whenever the mood strikes. I'm really more of a ranch dressing sort of girl. Shocking, I know! Seems like ranch is the official dressing of California. We put it on everything, salad, carrots, fries, etc. I've even heard some people put it on pizza, which I find revolting. But, if that's what gets you clucking, have at it, little chicken.

But, sometimes, I just don't have any ranch on hand and have to improvise and last night was one of those nights. I came up short on time to make dinner for our family of six and defaulted to "rabbit food" and threw together a salad. Only issue was, I had no ranch and found some Gorgonzola in the fridge that cried out, "USE ME!". And, that's just what I did.

Here's my method:

2 oz of Gorgonzola cheese
1/3 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup sour cream
3/4 tsp rice vinegar (sherry vinegar is more traditional, but I never have it on hand)
1/2 tsp olive oil
1/4 tsp black pepper

Chuck it all in your blender and flip that sucker to liquefy! Give it a taste and add more pepper if you like or stir in an extra ounce of cheese crumbles if you like it chunky. Serve immediately or store in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.

Cilantro Lime Brown Rice

For those die hard fans of a certain Mexican food chain, this post is for you. Even if you aren't the biggest fan of said food chain, you should pay attention, too, because this dish will rock your socks. Being from Southern California, we eat a lot of Mexican food, both when we're out and at home. It's simple to prepare, crowd pleasing, and allows me to indulge in my love of limes and cumin. It has quickly become one of my most favorite go-to side dish recipes.

When I first started making this dish, I used white rice, because I had it on hand. I loved it and so did my family, but my preference really lies more with using brown rice. Sure, it takes longer to cook, but my idol, Alton Brown, has an awesome method of baking brown rice and I've been a die hard convert ever since. Besides, baking has proven, in this house, to yield far more consistent results than sitting around babysitting a pot of boiling rice on the stove.

So, enough of my blathering, this is my method:

1 1/2 cup brown rice, medium or long grain
2 1/2 cup boiling water
1 Tbs unsalted butter
3/4 tsp kosher salt
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
The zest of one lime
The juice of one lime

Preheat your oven to 375. In an oven safe casserole dish, add the rice, salt, butter, and boiling water. Cover with foil and bake for 1 hour. Immediately after it bakes, fluff with a fork and add the cilantro, lime zest, and lime juice and toss to incorporate it well. Serve and devour.

Yes, it's really that simple! I hope you enjoy it, we sure do.

An Introduction, of sorts

My name is Shannon. I'm a native Californian now living in a small town in North Texas with my fantastic husband and four lovely children. After spending 1/2 of my husband's 20 years in the Navy following him around the world, we're now embarking on our new life as a civilian family. It's been an interesting transition and one that, despite our worst fears, has not been all that hard. And, now that we're a bit more settled, I feel that it's finally time for me to break out of my shell and try my hand at blogging about one of my most favorite pass times; Cooking.

Not that the internet really needs another blog about food. I'm not trying to be the next Ree Drummond (though I do think she is amazing). I'm really just a slightly nerdy... Okay, VERY nerdy housewife who spends a lot of time in her kitchen making food for her family. It is here that I've decided to write about my trials and tribulations in my kitchen and I hope that you all enjoy reading.